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"THE GOLLE&E AP THE OLD COLLE&E CURRICULUM; 



AN ORATION 

Delivered at the Centennial Celebration of Franklin 
AND Marshall College, June 15, 1887. 



BY 

LEWIS H. STEINER, M.D., LL.D., Litt.D., 

LiBKABiAN, Enoch Pkatt Free Library. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

REFORMED CHURCH PUBLICATION BOARD, 

No. 907 Arch Street. 
1887. 




"THE COLLE&E AND THE OLE COLLE&E CURRICULUM." 



AN ORATION 

Delivered at the Centennial Celebration of Franklin 
AND Marshall College, June 15, 1887. 




BY 

LEWIS HySTEINER, M.D., LLD., Litt.D., 

LiBKAEiAN, Enoch Pratt Free Library. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

REFORMED CHURCH PUBLICATION BOARD, 

No. 907 Arch Street. 

1887. 



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16Ja'(W 



THE 



One hundred years ago the corner-stone of a building for the 
use of a college, created by the authority of the Legislature of 
Pennsylvania, was laid in this city by Benjamin Franklin. 
The names of the trustees, to whom were entrusted its interests, 
show that they were chiefly of German nativity. 

Fifty years thereafter, in a small village nestling at the base 
of the hills of Franklin County, one solitary student — the sole 
representative of the highest class of an institution there lo- 
cated — took his baccalaureate degree and became the first-fruits 
of another college, also authorized by the Legislature of the 
same commonwealth. 

Both of these colleges were established by men of German birth, 
or by those who boasted ancestry that came to these shores from 
Germany. Whatever vitality they manifested, whatever spirit 
was shown in their subsequent history, was the result of Ger- 
man earnestness and German piety. Their support, in most 
cases, came from those who had toiled to gain a meagre sub- 
sistence for themselves, but who were animated with an earnest 
desire to establish institutions where their descendants could fit 
themselves for any duty in life, and contribute to the welfare of 
the new country in which their lot had been cast. They prayed 
and labored, fought against a mighty array of adverse circum- 
stances, sacrificed much, but still kept prominently before them 
their main object — to give their children and their descendants 

3 



opportunities to secure a good spiritual and intellectual outfit 
for the work of life. 

Time passed, and the friends of these two colleges, seeing 
how much more effectively they could perform their duties as 
institutions for training young Americans, under the influence 
of what were precious legacies of German thought and German 
piety, wisely determined to merge their separate and somewhat 
rival relations into one college, which should challenge the 
respect and support of the people from whom their students 
were to be drawn. The united college bore the names of the two 
out of which it was formed, and, from the very day of the union, 
started off on a career which, while it has not been marked 
with the flashy success of a meteor dashing across the sky, has 
shown how faithfully its ofiicers have striven to realize the ideal 
of a liberal Christian education. 

To-day we meet under the auspices of the united institutions 
to return our sincere thanks to Him who has been its buckler 
and shield, to scan the extent of the work it has done and is now 
doing, and to bring such help and inspiration to its faculty and 
trustees as may enable them to take fresh courage and push for- 
ward still more vigorously in the path they have hewn out for 
themselves among the colleges of these United States. 

Of those who were honored with degrees by the college whose 
birthday was one hundred years ago, none are with us in the 
flesh to-day; some have come from that located at the base of 
Parnell, whose years amid the struggles of life have been nearly 
as numerous as those claimed for their alma mater, and whose 
care-worn brows show that they have been toilers in the world 
and earnest advocates of the right and the true ; still more are 
here from the united institution, full of the traditions of the 
past, but like young giants eager for the work before them, 
proud of the reputations gained by their predecessors, but full 
of determination to show themselves worthy of it, and ambitious 
to secure still greater triumphs. These three classes are all 
represented here to-day, — the sainted dead who struggled in 
the early years of Franklin, accomplishing but little beyond 



the preservation of the potentiality of the idea of an Anglo- 
German college ; the vigorous, hardy sons of Marshall, who, 
after earnest preparation for the work of life under the inspira- 
tion of the sainted genius whose teachings were their pride and 
veneration, plunged into the conflict, are also here with grateful 
hearts and renewed vigor, although marked with many scars 
indicative of the earnest combats through which they have 
passed ; and along with these are their successors of Franklin 
and Marshall — the fair flower of which the others were 
the promise — upon whom we, the hoys of an earlier day, and 
our predecessors from the shadow-land, invoke the blessings of 
Heaven as the hope of the nation we love. Hail, fathers and 
brothers! ^^ma ma^er has invited us to the feast. Learning, 
Beauty and Religion have entreated that they might be hand- 
maidens to welcome the wandering sons to the home fireside. 
We are not strangers to one another, even if our faces are un- 
familiar and our voices secure no recognition from attentive 
ears. Do not our hearts beat in unison ? has not the same love 
fired our youthful souls ? have we not drawn inspiration alike 
from the lips or the writings of the Christian philosopher to 
whom we owe so much for those mighty truths that have proven 
themselves the mainsprings of our usefulness in life ? We come 
responsive to her call, prepared to lay whatever of honor and 
distinction we may have gained at her feet, prepared to ignore 
for the time the years that have accumulated upon our heads, 
and ready to be boys once more — subject to her orders and 
obedient to her discipline. We know that it is good for us to be 
here, because we hope to secure such a fresh consecration for 
the work that may still be before us in life that will enable us 
to put new energy and zeal into all our future efforts, — to 
acquire additional power in the struggle in behalf of the good 
and the true, and to go forth from this home-visit with the com- 
forting feeling that we are fighting no battle alone, but in 
intelligent sympathy with hundreds of brothers trained as we 
were, armed as we are, and ready for vigorous contests under 
the same banner. 



Amid, however, the joy and exultation of this meeting, the 
fact that many are not with us, who, having finished their tasks, 
have passed from the toils of earth to the triumphs of paradise, 
spreads a cloud of sorrow between us and the sun, and for a mo- 
ment hides the brightness of the present with a renewal of the 
gloom that so thickly enshrouded us when they were called 
away. Familiar faces, beaming and glowing with the freshness 
of youth, — voices whose friendly tones once sounded more 
sweetly to our ears than any ever produced by musical instru- 
ment, — sympathizing hearts and gentle spirits, — friends of our 
college days, with whom we loved to mingle in closest com- 
munion ; may we not pause and drop a tear of affectionate 
regret as memory brings you all before us ! And there, in 
your midst, the grand figure of that Christian Gamaliel at whose 
feet we loved to sit, whose earnest and profound spirit stripped 
with ease from the superficial and specious philosophies of the 
schools the gaudy, meretricious ornaments that were calculated 
to excite the admiration and bewilder the spirits of the young, 
whose noble soul found its loftiest ambition only fully 
satisfied when at the feet of the lowly Jesus, whose teach- 
ings to his pupils were so many inspirations that have 
never been wholly obscured in any of our souls, but have 
blessed us whenever we have sufi'ered them to light our paths 
and guide us in the solution of the various problems of life. 
May we not pause and, with the deep reverence we feel for the 
memory of our old master, as the eyes grow moist and the lips 
become tremulous, thank the Giver of all that is good for the 
rich legacy of ethical and theological teachings that were left 
the sons of Franklin and Marshall and the Reformed Church 
when John Williamson Nevin, ripe in years and full of 
earthly honors, was gathered to his fathers ! Are we untrue to 
his teachings when we assert as our fond belief that, in the 
clouds of witnesses from the spirit-land around us to-day, there 
is none more in sympathy with the occasion than he who struggled 
and toiled so many years for the welfare of our institutions, 
bore obloquy and reproach from little souls who failed to catch 



even a glimpse of his unselfish greatness, and at the last, when 
success was assured, laid aside the honors he had secured, re- 
tired from the post of authority whence his utterances would 
have been ex-cathedra to his disciples, and spent the remaining 
years of his life in retirement ? If any human being should be 
remembered most gratefully on this occasion, surely it is he 
who, coming into our midst, gathered up all the educational 
prophecies of the past with reference to the college, made it 
possible that they could be realized, and gave an inspiration to 
his pupils which became stronger and more effective as they 
grew in years. True, others contributed to the results secured 
whose names and deeds will be duly honored by those in charge 
of the details of this Centennial. They were grand assistants 
to the master-spirit, but he was grander and mightier than all, 
and as such I pause to drop the tear of affection over his grave! 
It has been incidentally mentioned that the founders of the 
institution, and, it might be added, its principal supporters, were 
men through whose veins coursed German blood. Their ances- 
tors had but little sympathy with the superficial in the ma- 
terial, intellectual or spiritual world. Their love for the 
beautiful might not have been as pronounced as that of some 
others, but their devotion to the useful and the good was 
second to none. In their old home they had built their castles, 
their churches, their houses, not for the passing moment, but 
as though for all time ; and, similarly, all their material con- 
structions were not made for show, but to endure, were made 
not to please the eye, but to serve some useful purpose, and 
could always be relied upon. Their education had no toleration 
for the superficial. It must lead the student deep under the 
surface, where the primal causes were to be found. Its students 
were never satisfied with a mere plausible reason. They de- 
manded something profound and absolutely relevant. In the 
search for this they threw aside the thought of gain and the 
hope of worldly aggrandizement. It was truth they wanted, 
and in their opinion no labor was wasted that would make its 
quest a complete success. In spiritual matters the same idea 



prevailed ; the German religious life was not the turbulent 
babbling of a shallow stream over rocks, pebbles or other ob- 
stacles that might fill up its bed and obstruct its course, but it 
was the almost noiseless flow of the mighty river, which, having 
cut its way through all obstacles, had made a channel free 
from all obstruction, through which it could bear its freight on 
to the mighty ocean. 

With such marked peculiarities on the part of its founders, 
the college must have grown up to maturity, abhorring a super- 
ficial curriculum, and detesting the shams and makeshifts 
which are not unusual in the enterprises of the age. Its cur- 
riculum must have been designed for a full, rounded culture of 
the student, not pretending to fit him fully for an}? special pro- 
fession or pursuit in life, but so training all his mental powers 
that, when he should be deemed worthy of baccalaureate hon- 
ort-', he might go forth apt and ready to enter upon a special 
preparation for the duties of his future life. Its faculty set 
forth this idea with all proper emphasis in their annual circu- 
lars, and evidently felt that, whatever might be the future fate 
of the college, it should be true to the course laid down for 
ages as that best fitted for the careful training of the young. 
All this was in such strong contrast to the tendency of the 
times to permit each student to study such subjects only as 
might be peculiarly apposite to his future calling, that the 
conservatism which it manifested soon made it obnoxious to the 
epithet of " fogyish " from the advocates of the " new " educa- 
tion. 

It requires some courage in the individual not to move with 
the tidal wave of fashion, and a great deal for him to breast 
that wave and endeavor to pursue his course in direct antago- 
nism to its movements. It is so easy to harmonize with the 
tendencies of the day, whether the results of deliberate thought 
or the momentary impulses of mere whim. Moreover, one's 
reputation for amiability is thereby established and strength- 
ened. He who participates in the popular movement becomes 
necessarily a popular man, and may stand a chance to get the 



uncertain honor of an election to the State Legislature or the 
National Congress. But he who sturdily refuses to yield to 
popular clamor, clings to what has been tried in the years that 
have preceded him, unless the weightiest reasons are assigned 
for the transfer of his allegiance, is progressive so far and so far 
only as that which is good and has been severely tried can be 
carried forward in the front rank with him, — he may not 
achieve popularity, indeed may be taunted as a conservative to 
whom the epithet " Fogy " is justly applicable ; but his con- 
temporaries will never deny him the character of a strong and 
useful man, whose life is a precious tower of safety to the com- 
munity, while those who come after him will delight to hold 
him up to their children as a model worthy of their imitation. 
The world has long since discovered that popularity is no 
proof of greatness or wisdom, or talent, or goodness, but, in 
many cases, is rather suggestive of a travesty of all these, and 
bears with it the suspicion that success has been secured at the 
cost of calm consideration and earnest conviction. 

Similarly, it requires courage for a corporation to decline 
. taking a position in a movement that has involved other corpor- 
ations organized for the same purpose, and this especially 
when such action would give it the glamour of popularity and 
possibly bring it, for the time being, great prosperity and pecuni- 
ary reward. The smaller the corporation, the more limited its 
resources, the greater its need for money — the more striking will 
be its position and more entitled to respect, if it clings to its 
own convictions and declines to move adverse to them. 

Many of the smaller colleges of the land have acquired such a 
record in their struggles against the popular tide in education, 
which seems to have influenced some of our larger colleges to 
recognize but little as worthy of a place in the curriculum of 
studies that cannot be made of pecuniary profit to the student. 
True, such a course was based upon an utter disregard of the 
idea that certain studies are specially advantageous for the devel- 
opment of all the faculties of the mind, and that their employ- 
ment as a whole prevents the abnormal development of some at 



10 

the expense of others, — an idea which has had the sanction of 
centuries. But the age was so prolific in wondrous scientific dis- 
coveries and still more wondrous application of the same, that a 
restiveness under the slow and sure methods of training speedily 
made itself manifest. The question was bluntly addressed to our 
educators — what use can we make in our daily mercantile and 
mechanical lines of business of Latin or Greek roots, of the dry 
details of Logic and Metaphysics, or slow methods of fitting 
youths for active participation in the business of life? Our mo- 
tors are not the same as those used by our ancestors. The horse 
was supplanted by steam when rapid transmission became a ne- 
cessity, and we are now only impatiently awaiting the discovery 
of methods by which electricity may be used as the motor of the 
world. Why shall we be content with the tallow-candle as a 
source of light, when gas or, better still, the Edison incandescent 
burner can be employed to illuminate our path by night with its 
bright, dazzling, far-penetrating light ? The age is one of steam 
and electricity. Our teachers must present nothing to our chil- 
dren that will make them pause and cast a longing look at the 
past 1 That is only useful which treats of the pr^Btmt or prophet 
sies of the future! We must break with the past P We want 
none of the so-called culture of the dead languages. Teach us 
the living, with which we can buy, and sell, and get great gain. 
Teach us only the things that are practical ! The age is not one 
for dreamers, but for active, busy, wide-awake men of practical 
bent I Questions such as these and arguments of a similar char- 
acter began to be largely employed, possibly not so free from 
the drapery of rhetorical attractions as I have stated them, but 
showing, however expressed and richly draped, Jhat a spirit of 
utilitarianism^ demanding a definite statement of the monied 
value of their studies, was invading our colleges and striving to 
overturn the wise conclusions, which centuries of experience had 
reached, as to the best course of studies for fitting a young man 
for life. Many shrank from this method of viewing the subject, 
but still felt that changes must be made in order to satisfy what 
was fast being developed from "a tendency" to " a movement," 



11 

and it was their business to court the popular favor, because that 
was tantamount to prosperity. But how could they show some, 
if only the slightest, apparent reverence for the verdict of ac- 
ademic history, and yet satisfy the Zeitgeist ? And the plan 
was speedily devised, by taking this theory as its foundation, 
viz., certain studies have a direct value in the special life-calling 
which the youth proposes to undertake, — therefore let him take 
up these and devote his entire energies to them. Let him elect 
what he will study. He ought to know best. There must be no 
intellectual procrustean bed upon which he shall be stretched. A 
free country demands, quite as much as the necessity of special 
preparation for his future calling, that he shall have no hin- 
drance to the study of any subject that he may think desirable. or 
necessary. And so, ignoring the idea that the early training of 
the mind, body and spirit of the young must really be the same, 
that there are certain similar kinds of food required by all three 
^ so that they shall become suflficiently strong to do manly work 
in accordance with the bent, inclination or taste that may select 
or control their life-work,^ignoring this idea, the movement was 
made to break up all fixed curricula, and to leave the whole 
subject of training in its details to the judgment or whim of the 
"X^^ youth to be trained. 

Some of'the large colleges appeared so anxious to encourage 
this tendency as to make the whole curriculum subject to the 
individual choice, to throw aside all that had been approved as 
best fitted to give a round, equable mental developmenil- which 
should eventuate in fitness for fair, intelligent, special work, 
whether professional or technical, whenever the time would 
come for taking it up. Electives became the prominent feature 
of the college curriculum, and a fixed course of studies a singu- 
larly rare feature. The smaller institutions, carried away by 
the example of the larger, or influenced by the hope of securing 
an increase of students for themselves through marching in the 
front rank of this movement, became more radical in their prac- 
tices than their exemplars and more inimical to the system of 
education which tries to train, to furnish mental discipline and 



12 

to fit for life in all parts, so that the individual maj find useful 
results of infinitely greater value than can be estimated in 
money. The fashion was established. The hobby or fetich 
which our colleges delighted to worship was named " the use- 
ful," meaning by the name that which has a value that can be 
expressed in dollars and cents. For this they shouted vivat, 
while they muttered, with angry emphasis, pereat, at the men- 
tion of any study that savored of pure intellectual training or 
gradual development for the ambitious youth. Of course there 
Avas a semblance of propriety in this plan of submitting electives 
to the student, so that he might direct his attention towards the 
pursuit which was to be his own in the future, but the egregious 
error with those who were honestly connected with the move- 
ment was the ignoring the fact that the choice was permitted 
before sufiicient knowledge had been acquired by the youth to 
make it intelligently, that the cool deliberations of a full-grown 
man, bodily, mentally and spiritually, had been taken for granted 
in cases where there existed great necessity for tarrying much 
longer at an academic Jericho until the growth of the intellec- 
tual beard would give evidence of full adult manhood. Electives 
were offered to the Freshman long before he could possibly so 
command the whole of the intellectual field as to know where 
his mental energies would find their most congenial home. The 
power of choice was granted before he had attained his intellect- 
ual majority. The laws of the land denied him the right of the 
elective franchise before he had reached the age of twenty-one, 
and yet, although unable to exercise this in a country where 
even young children are conversant with politics and the 
records of politicians, the youth of sixteen or seventeen was 
supposed to be able to determine much more important ques- 
tions for himself, individually, and to exercise the right of an 
election of the highest personal value. 

The result of this movement was not confined to the mere 
matter of choice of studies. It was still more comprehensive. 
Its legitimate tendency was the removal of all limitations upon 
youth, and the obliteration of all college regulations and at- 



13 

tempts at discipline. In the movement to put the youthful in- 
dividual whim beyond the control of the judgment of the ex- 
perienced and the uniform conclusions of the past, the principle 
of no restrictions, save those which the laws of the land impose 
for their infraction, asserted itself. College discipline had been 
based either upon a code of laws consisting largely of " thou 
shalt nots," with penalties annexed, which at times became 
wearisome and obnoxious to the youth who was to be trained in 
the college to the accurate performance of his tasks from a 
high sense of duty, or upon an enumeration of tasks and a 
statement of regulations which were laid down with appeals to 
a gentlemanly sense of honor for their observance, and whose 
persistent violations could only be punished by a removal of the 
diseased member from the otherwise healthy body. The latter 
was the favorite method with the best educators. The student 
while at the school required detailed regulations involving pro- 
hibitions and probable petty penalties, but there was to be 
somewhat larger liberty so as to fit him for the future, when he 
Avas to be a law to himself. He was not to understand his 
college liberty as implying no recognition of law, but rather as 
that which could only be fully enjoyed in and under its pro- 
tection. There were fewer penalties, but these were more 
grievous in their nature. Hours for recitation and other pur- 
poses were to be preserved, because system and order and dis- 
cipline had not yet completed their work, and this work was 
that at which the whole curriculum was aiming. 

The new system, however, removed all restrictions. The 
individual will should not be restrained. Attendance upon rec- 
itations must be absolutely voluntary. All the minor details, 
supposed to be necessary to every well-ordered household, were 
to be discarded. The majority of the individual, intellectual 
and moral, was to be anticipated. Professors were to be freed 
from any special care for the habits and morals of their pupils, 
while their duties were to be confined solely to imparting intel- 
lectual instruction, at certain definite hours, to those who chose 
to attend at the time specified. 



14 

One step further was taken. The question arose quite natur- 
ally, If no fixed course is required of the youth, why shall he 
be compelled to attend daily prayers and Sunday services ? Is 
it not better that attendance on these should be left to his own 
volition — to his own spiritual longings? And so, instead of the 
college being of service, as in former days, to strengthen the 
intellect, the will, the spiritual fibre by the gradual withdrawal 
of the props that the child demanded — which were lovingly fur- 
nished at home and judiciously provided at school — it is made 
the arena where all these are thrown aside and the youth is 
called upon to bear the burdens and undergo the temptations of 
manhood with little, if any, assistance whatever. That the risk 
to be undergone is great, no one can deny; that it is unneces- 
sary, at the age and under the circumstances, I have no hesita- 
tion to declare. 

Let me sum up what the tendencies of the popular college 
education of the day involve. First, the ignoring of the study 
of the so-called dead languages — Latin and Greek — which, in- 
stead of being dead, are really manifesting a perennial life 
throughout the literature of all countries, because they are the 
custodians of the thought and beauty that belonged to the human 
mind, when it was untrammeled by traditions and reveled in 
close contact with the truths of nature. Second, the lowering 
of liberal culture, while a money-estimate is placed upon the 
studies of the college course, according to which those only are 
of value to the individual student that seem to have some direct 
connection with his future calling. Third, the removal of all dis- 
ciplinary agencies which were intended, in an educational way, to 
strengthen the moral and spiritual nature of the young, and to 
lead them along so that they may gradually learn to think and 
act as well-trained, strong, self-reliant men, fitted in all respects 
to assume the general duties of life or to enter upon special 
preparation for any subsequent professional or technical pur- 
suit. These results antagonize the work which was formerly 
assigned to the college. The sphere of the college was well- 
defined as " the discipline and cultivation of all the powers of 



15 

the individual, so that bodily " — and it must be admitted that 
there is strong reason for the introduction of athletics into our 
colleges — " mentally and spiritually he may be trained for the 
warfare of life." 

A recent utterance from the University of Berlin shows how 
the scientists of its Faculty recognized this order of training 
as that best adapted to fit students even for special scientific 
work. For a quarter of a century the graduates of the gym- 
nasia — somewhat corresponding to our colleges — and those of 
the Real Schule have been admitted on a like plane to the 
University. But, after this long experience, the declaration 
has been made that the students from the Gymnasia, who 
have been closely and carefully trained in the old classical 
curriculum, have been found better equipped, even for the 
scientific studies, than those whose preparation was made in 
the Real Schule, where the practical or technical idea pre- 
vailed. And this declaration was signed by Hoffmann, one of 
the greatest chemists of the day. 

Now, the requirements of the age may demand of some, who 
are impatient to enter upon practical pursuits, that their edu- 
cation should be so specially conducted as to give business- 
knowledge and business-fitness, and of others that they should 
pursue technic studies in order that they may be able to plunge 
into the duties of life. We have no controversy with this 
fact. Some technological study may possibly be beneficial at 
every stage of education — if for no other purpose, certainly for 
the completion of mental discipline — but the experience of the 
past accords perfectly with the conclusions of the Berlin 
savans tTiat the best preparation for that which requires a 
thoroughly cultivated and well-disciplined mind is the old col- 
lege course of studies pursued under the direction of honest, 
earnest, industrious, able professors, whose lives are devoted 
to their duties, and that he who has conscientiously completed 
it is thereby ordinarily much better prepared to take up the 
pursuit of special studies thereafter than one who has not had 
the advantages it furnishes. 



16 i 

With these views, acquired when a boy in the early days of 
Marshall College, strengthened by contact with the world and 
the experiences it brings to every one who strives to perform 
his duty, I turn with pleasure to the General Regist^^r of 
Franklin and Marshall, and find these utterances from its 
faculty : 

" Franklin and Marshall has remained firm in its adherence to what it 
conceives to be the true end and aim of a college. While it freely con- 
cedes the legitimate calling of institutions that lay themselves out specially 
for a business education, and the pursuit of technic studies, it does not be- 
lieve that such purposes can be advantageously joined with a vigorous and 
successful attempt to make a full classical course." 

I read, also, that Divine service is held on Sundays, that a 
Biblical or catechetical course of instruction is given on Sunday 
morning, that a daily morning service is held in the chapel, 
and 

"That these provisions are such as parents usually wish their sons to 
enjoy at home, and they are designed to throw around them the strongest 
agencies for good in the midst of the dangers and perils by which they are 
surrounded during this most interesting period of their lives." 

Bravely said, Mater Carissima! you have remained firm and 
true to the ideal set before you in the days of your youth, have 
striven to realize it all these years, and are still true to your 
convictions and earnest in your endeavors to bring up your 
sons in accordance with the traditions of the past and the ex- 
perience of its most faithful educators. And while doing this, 
you have shown yourself not unmindful of the fact that the 
age is one of wondrous developments in science and art. Your 
observatory, your efforts after more elaborate means of illus- 
trating the scientific progress of the present, all show how 
faithfulness to the past can be connected with a hearty recog- 
nition of progress. Conservatism is not necessarily antago- 
nistic to progress, but can so beautifully blend with it as to 
demonstrate the continuity of all human effort and all mental 
life. With truth it can be said of alma mater, that " your 
children arise up and call you blessed." 



17 

Vivat Academia 
Et qui illam regit. 
Vivat membrum quodlibet, 
_ Vivant membra quselibet, 

Semper sint in flore. 

Another error which the college has avoided is the tendency 
to masquerade as a university, while striving to carry out the 
idea of a college. The spheres and methods of the two insti- 
tutions are widely different. The one is intended for general 
training to intellectual work, the other to fit the student for 
the specialty which his mature mind has selected. The one has 
little or nothing to do with electives, the other must furnish 
these in abundance, so that the student can acquire the special 
knowledge that will be of value in his life-work. The one has 
to do with a fixed course and with restrictions that gradually 
diminish as the college-life draws to a close ; the other recog- 
nizes the individual as having passed beyond the restraints 
needed by youth and now ready to forge out the weapons which 
will be required in the special arm of the service in which he has 
enlisted for the coming battle. In the university he is to be a 
law to himself as regards his bodily, intellectual and spiritual 
conduct. Here his personal bent and inclination are of the 
first importance. They must shape his studies, determine the 
courses of lectures most necessary, and cause him to avail him- 
self of everything that will give his adult powers and well- 
trained mind such mastery over the truths which specialists 
have gathered in the past, that he can take his place among 
them and, by original work, make additional contributions to 
their stores. Having learned the advantage of discipline in 
the ranks, he has become fitted to take a place with those who 
are to exercise authority and demand recognition for their 
special knowledge. 

The university insures the grand efilorescence of the plant, 
which having sprouted forth from the seed sown in childhood in 
the school, has undergone nurture in youth in the college, and 
has been placed under conditions, in a suitable environment, that 
will give it free course to show forth its peculiar characteristics. 



18 

Such an institution must have a liberal foundation, since its 
teachers should all be proficients — recognized experts or mas- 
ters ; its illustrations should be of the best, and, therefore, of 
the costliest character ; its libraries should be large, and com- 
prehending the written conclusions of the wisest men who have 
labored in the domain of human knowledge ; and its means for 
fresh and original investigation should be such as to invite the 
ambitious to work in untrodden fields with great probability of 
success. Without a liberal foundation it will fail to realize the 
ideal involved in its simplest form, and prove a delusion to 
those who have been enrolled among its members. Hence, uni- 
versities cannot be numerous. Far better that they should be 
few, thoroughly equipped, well manned, largely supplied with 
members eager for the advantages they may offer, and become 
necessarily great centres for original work and valuable contri- 
butions to science and literature; Colleges may be numerous, 
— in the nature of the case, must be; but universities involve 
so much outlay of money, so large an assemblage of great 
talent, that to carry out their true conception they must be 
limited in number. When the college tries to imitate their 
methods, it fails to furnish the young student the training he 
needs, and immerses the adult in superficiality instead of the 
thoroughness which he has the right to expect. It travesties 
the genuine, it degrades its own special functions, and it 
becomes a hindrance instead of an aid to the spread of knowl- 
edge. 

Thoroughness is an object to be striven after by every edu- 
cator. What is worth learning at all is worth learning well. 
Shallow pretence, superficial display and a smattering of 
knowledge belong to the humbugs of the day. Life is too real, 
too earnest to be occupied with such substitutes for genuine 
proficiency. The age needs less veneer over crass ignorance, 
less of the whited sepulchre full of nothing that possesses vi- 
tality in itself or can confer vitality upon others, less of the 
pitiful pretender, less adulteration of the good and the wise, 
and more of the solid and enduring, more of earnest labor. 



19 

more of that true spirit of manliness which delves for gold and 
will not be satisfied with any base counterfeit it may exhume 
in the course of its quest. 

The college that is inspired with such a spirit will be the 
source of incalculable value to its patrons and an inestimable 
benefit to its students. It will teach the latter to beware of 
shams and subterfuges, to despise a lie in action as well as in 
wordj to leave no effort untried to be true in study and in reci- 
tation, to spare no labor to master whatever may be assigned 
as the daily task, and to grow up to an honorable, upright 
manhoodj fitted for direct, earnest work wherever their occupa- 
tions may place them. It will prepare the way for excellence 
in professional life, for success in mercantile or any other pur- 
suit, and will furnish the State what it needs at present, — pru- 
dent, wise, far-sighted and broad-minded citizens, able to rise 
above the machine-politics of the day, to appreciate the widest 
and most enlarged statesmanship in others, and to take a judi- 
cious position themselves on every question affecting the honor 
or prosperity of the nation-at-large or the particular State of 
which they may be citizens. 

The duty now rests upon educated men to take part in many 
questions that are demanding speedy solution. The masses 
must be educated, — and what does this not involve ? At most 
they can only be made the recipients of the rudimentary 
branches taught in our primary schools. The little learning 
acquired may prove to be quite dangerous unless it is supple- 
mented from the pulpit, the platform and that most wonderful 
agent for good or evil, the press, with a larger and more copious 
supply. The welfare of the nation demands that there should 
be constant instruction of the people as to the rights and duties 
of citizens, the relations existing between capital and labor, the 
mutual obligations of the State and its component parts, and a 
thousand other subjects on which unprincipled agitators are 
continually haranguing the people and preparing the way for 
the introduction of measures which mean, when carried out, 
anarchy and the ruin of everything that divine or human law 



20 

teaches us to hold sacred and inviolatGc We cannot avoid the 
performance of this duty. It is not possible in this conflict to 
hire a substitute and send him to the front to represent us. We 
must go ourselves. We must individually take part, because 
■we owe it to our families, to the State and to the great Being 
who has so mysteriously made us our brothers' keepers. We 
must also prepare our children for like duty when they enter 
upon their life-work. Knowing our own deficiencies, how we 
neglected many opportunities that were offered us in our days 
of preparation and used others feebly, we have the right to ask 
that the' eojleges shall be so conducted that these children shall 
be led by con^tmitly improving methods, which will develop the 
best form of mamKwd and fit them thoroughly in mind and 
spirit for the contest. And when all the colleges shall become 
alive to this duty, .shall frown down and expel from their midst 
everything that smacks of superficiality, and shall become cen- 
tres of honest and faithful training, the effect will be to so in- 
crease the army of sturdy warriors for the right that victory 
will be the inevitable result whenever they may encounter the 
hosts of evil and misrule. 

As a nation, we are now enjoying the blessings of peace. We 
must not, however, entertain the thought that the possibility of 
future struggle for right or even for national existence has been 
obliterated. It may be that our national strength as well as the 
tendency of the age will ensure the reference of all future diflS- 
culties with foreign nations to just arbitration, that the stupend- 
ous fraternal conflict through which we have passed will forever 
hereafter cause us to avoid such an unnatural method of settling 
internal difficulties, that a more civilized and Christianized 
statesmanship will force us to so look upon the Indian question 
as to find it not only better, but even more economical, to edu- 
cate our red brothers than to shoot them down at sight. But 
there are signs of danger from another quarter, which may call 
for the best means of offense and defense known to the^Chris- 
tian statesman and scholar. Heretofore we have exhibited a 
wonderful faculty of fusing the most incongruous and even an- 



21 

tagonistic elements into one homogeneous people. This has 
been so successfully accomplished that we have invited the na- 
tions of the earth to send their surplus population to us, with 
but little, if any, care as to the moral character of our immi- 
grants. And so, beside the hardy and honest foreigner who 
brings with him his family and scanty means, there is now landed 
upon our shores a class of lawless, unprincipled, godless scoun- 
drels, full of the political doctrines that precipitated the French 
Revolution, and practicing a defiance of religion and morality 
which would be destructive to the well-being of any people. 
As in other days when the nation's cry was heard for help, our 
colleges felt it a high privilege to show their patriotism by 
sending forth their students to rally around the national ensign 
and to insure its triumph, so now, in the coming contest with 
anarchy and socialism, it will be their duty again to enter the 
ranks and show by their valor and courage how they have 
trained their students to do good service against the wrong in 
whatever shape it may appear. On all such occasions may the 
sons of Franklin and Marshall be found in the front rank, earn- 
estly contending for the principles on which the college was 
founded and zealous for their maintenance. 

And when another centennium shall have passed away, and 
graduates and citizens shall again assemble to recount the inci- 
dents of her history, may the pages of her record be then as 
bright and honorable as they appear to-day, the number of her 
graduates be increased a thousand-fold, and her reputation for 
learning, patriotism and piety be second to no sister institution 
in the land ! Then, as now, may it be said in truth : '^ Surrex- 
erunt Filii eius, et Beatissimam prsedicaveruntJ' 



